Daily Archives: February 20, 2010

Fish and Game just won the right to land helicopters in the Frank Church Wilderness Area in order to collar wolves for research.
Remember that next time you decide to spend a little ‘quiet time’ in the wilderness.

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

No discipline for the authors of the waterboarding memos, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, though officially they “exercised poor judgement”. That sucks….they should have full vindication, but at least their current ordeal is over and they can continue to make their case to the public.
Here’s the interesting part (in bold):

But Margolis [Attorney General David Margolis, a senior career attorney] concluded that despite significant flaws in the documents, the memo authors did not intentionally violate ethics rules. Instead, he said, they were struggling to prevent another terrorist strike on U.S. soil. Margolis also pointed out that the legal issues were far from a close call: OPR investigators repeatedly shifted their own views and analysis in the course of multiple drafts.

Shifting views eh? hmmmmmm Further down in the story you get this.

Maureen E. Mahoney, an attorney for Bybee, called the Justice Department action a “vindication.”

“No public servant should have to endure the type of relentless, misinformed attacks that have been directed at Judge Bybee,” Mahoney said. “We can only hope that the department’s decision will establish once and for all that dedicated public officials may have honest disagreements on difficult matters of legal judgment without violating ethical standards.”

Miguel Estrada, an attorney for Yoo, said shifting versions of the ethics report by OPR investigators “reflected shockingly substandard legal work and a deep partisan bias.”